Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email) wrote:
> Say you wanted to introduce a programmer friend to D. She might know one of D's sibling languages (Java, C, C++, or C#), but you shouldn't rely too much on that. What features of D would you describe first to hook that friend in?
>
D is the compiled language I know that comes closest to python. Hearing that would make me interested, I can tell you.

torhu wrote:
> Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email) wrote:
>> Say you wanted to introduce a programmer friend to D. She might know one of D's sibling languages (Java, C, C++, or C#), but you shouldn't rely too much on that. What features of D would you describe first to hook that friend in?
>>> > D is the compiled language I know that comes closest to python. Hearing that would make me interested, I can tell you.
That's a very good point. I agree that it's the closest to Python (albeit, "as close as a lang like this can go", and I agree that this will be an interesting statement to a fairly wide audience. If we could only get some docs like Python, to complement the reference at DigitalMars...
BA

On 2006-12-29 15:12:41 -0800, Brad Anderson <brad@dsource.org> said:
> torhu wrote:
>> Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email) wrote:
>>> Say you wanted to introduce a programmer friend to D. She might know
>>> one of D's sibling languages (Java, C, C++, or C#), but you shouldn't
>>> rely too much on that. What features of D would you describe first to
>>> hook that friend in?
>>> >> >> D is the compiled language I know that comes closest to python. Hearing
>> that would make me interested, I can tell you.
> > That's a very good point. I agree that it's the closest to Python (albeit,
> "as close as a lang like this can go", and I agree that this will be an
> interesting statement to a fairly wide audience. If we could only get some
> docs like Python, to complement the reference at DigitalMars...
> > BA
I am not very impressed by Python's docs. The best docs that I've seen are the PHP docs because of commenting and excellent examples.
-- Jeff

Jeff wrote:
> I am not very impressed by Python's docs. The best docs that I've seen are the PHP docs because of commenting and excellent examples.
Second that.
PHP docs are well organized. Personally, I find it extremely intuitive. As far as I remember, it takes near no time to find what I want without knowing exact names or using search.
Contrarily, Python docs are plain hell to work with.
--
serg.

Serg Kovrov wrote:
> Jeff wrote:
>> I am not very impressed by Python's docs. The best docs that I've seen are the PHP docs because of commenting and excellent examples.
> > Second that.
> > PHP docs are well organized. Personally, I find it extremely intuitive. As far as I remember, it takes near no time to find what I want without knowing exact names or using search.
> > Contrarily, Python docs are plain hell to work with.
>
I cannot count the number of times I've filled up a full instance of Firefox with a dozen tabs or so, all open to PHP doc files. It is indeed intuitive. (And the comments are often just as useful as the docs themselves! For example: PHP has no is_assoc() to go along with is_array()... but look at the comments for the docs on is_array() and you can find a few examples of is_assoc() implementations right there.)
I'd be quite jolly to see a similar approach to the D docs, along with the "as of version X" descriptors, etc.
-- Chris Nicholson-Sauls

Chris Nicholson-Sauls wrote:
> Serg Kovrov wrote:
>> Jeff wrote:
>>>>> I am not very impressed by Python's docs. The best docs that I've seen are the PHP docs because of commenting and excellent examples.
>>>> Second that.
>>>> PHP docs are well organized. Personally, I find it extremely intuitive. As far as I remember, it takes near no time to find what I want without knowing exact names or using search.
>>>> Contrarily, Python docs are plain hell to work with.
>>> I cannot count the number of times I've filled up a full instance of Firefox with a dozen tabs or so, all open to PHP doc files. It is indeed intuitive. (And the comments are often just as useful as the docs themselves! For example: PHP has no is_assoc() to go along with is_array()... but look at the comments for the docs on is_array() and you can find a few examples of is_assoc() implementations right there.)
> > I'd be quite jolly to see a similar approach to the D docs, along with the "as of version X" descriptors, etc.
Picture this: two guys, each with their own web site, compete on world dominance on D documentation customer satisfaction. One is an absolute D guru and an average PHP programmer, the other is an absolute PHP guru and an average D programmer. Who'd you bet on? My bet's on the latter.
It's the infra that counts. But I'll come back to this once I've sobered up from the D 1.0 champagne which I'll drink to instead of the New Year. Too bad my local store doesn't carry Bollinger. ;-)

Georg Wrede wrote:
> Chris Nicholson-Sauls wrote:
>> Serg Kovrov wrote:
>>> Jeff wrote:
>>>>>>> I am not very impressed by Python's docs. The best docs that I've seen are the PHP docs because of commenting and excellent examples.
>>>>>> Second that.
>>>>>> PHP docs are well organized. Personally, I find it extremely intuitive. As far as I remember, it takes near no time to find what I want without knowing exact names or using search.
>>>>>> Contrarily, Python docs are plain hell to work with.
>>>>> I cannot count the number of times I've filled up a full instance of Firefox with a dozen tabs or so, all open to PHP doc files. It is indeed intuitive. (And the comments are often just as useful as the docs themselves! For example: PHP has no is_assoc() to go along with is_array()... but look at the comments for the docs on is_array() and you can find a few examples of is_assoc() implementations right there.)
>>>> I'd be quite jolly to see a similar approach to the D docs, along with the "as of version X" descriptors, etc.
> > Picture this: two guys, each with their own web site, compete on world dominance on D documentation customer satisfaction. One is an absolute D guru and an average PHP programmer, the other is an absolute PHP guru and an average D programmer. Who'd you bet on? My bet's on the latter.
> > It's the infra that counts. But I'll come back to this once I've sobered up from the D 1.0 champagne which I'll drink to instead of the New Year. Too bad my local store doesn't carry Bollinger. ;-)
I went out and bought some Barenjager and Chartreuse for the occasion, myself.
-- Chris Nicholson-Sauls

"Benji Smith" wrote:
>> Does that mean that wherever you did "new Foo" [in Java] he did a "new Foo" [in C++] also?
>> Yes. He also subsequently did a "delete Foo" when he was finished with the object.
>It is no suprise that C++ underperformed, IMO.
/Pavel

Jeff wrote:
> On 2006-12-29 15:12:41 -0800, Brad Anderson <brad@dsource.org> said:
> > I am not very impressed by Python's docs. The best docs that I've seen are the PHP docs because of commenting and excellent examples.
> > -- Jeff
>
I agree with this %300.
What I find most humorous about PHP is that it *needs* good documentation because the "API" is so horribly fragmented - they kept the import names and call signatures from all those C libs, rather than normalize them. The doc-comments feature was also a must-have since the documentation provided was (and in places, still is) anything but adequate on it's own.
The only major fault in the PHP doc web is that the documentation isn't ever really updated *from* the user provided comments. You'd think an editor would gather up all the corrections and examples and fold them in, rather than let them hang out there for years on end? I've seen some threads where the oldest posts are mis-information of the worst kind due to them dating back to PHP 3.0.
Another example: the ColdFusion docs do have editors that upgrade/update the system regularly. However, they like to wipe out *everything* between language versions on their website - they're separate webs after all. The result is the CF5, CFMX6 and CFMX7 doc webs all have different user content.
--
- EricAnderton at yahoo